William Nylander is about to secure his spot for next year and beyond, while there were signs and fan chants encouraging Steven Stamkos to change teams in the summer should he become free to return home.

But for unknowns such as Ben Smith and Connor Carrick, it’s all about now. Making an impression in the final month of the Maple Leafs season to stake out a spot in 2016-17. Smith, an industrious centre picked up in the James Reimer trade with San Jose, and young defender Carrick, who came with Brooks Laich from Washington, scored their first goals as Leafs Tuesday and have contributed to two solid wins over playoff calibre teams.

In Tuesday’s case, it was 4-1 over the Lightning, the cheers for first star Smith drowning out the ‘We Want Stamkos’ refrain for the great GTA/UFA hope.

Smith lost the puck on Tampa Bay’s only goal by Brian Boyle, then fired the winner off a Michael Grabner rebound. He was a couple of weeks’ shy of a calendar year since his last NHL goal. He also assisted on Zach Hyman’s empty netter. Hyman doing likewise for P.A. Parenteau.

“We want to establish a winning feeling in this room,” Smith said. “Over the last week or so (points in four of the past five games) I think we’ve improved on that.

“We’re feeling better about where we are and we’re excited about the direction this has gone. I hadn’t scored in almost a year, but it feels nice to contribute in other ways.”

“Smitty’s pretty dependable, a common-sense guy who has been excellent for us,” said head coach Mike Babcock.

Carrick had a goal his first year with Capitals in 2013-14, but had few NHL opportunities since. Small, but quick and agile, he stepped into a second-period drive, a bouncing puck that flattened out just in time, eluding giant Bolts’ barricade Andrei Vasilevskiy.

“We were humming around their end and you want to make those count,” the 21-year-old Carrick said. “I was pretty excited. Scoring a goal is hard in this league.

“It feels good playing a role in other teams’ playoff hopes. You want to ruin them as much as you can.”

Now the Lightning will be counting on the Leafs to show the same spunk on Thursday when the state rival Panthers are at the ACC. The clubs were tied, a point back of Boston, before Tuesday. The Florida game will be the 10th for Nylander, which would burn a year of his entry level contract, a move the Leafs indicated they were comfortable doing in the morning.

Though both general manager Lou Lamoriello and Babcock came from teams with deep rooted farm systems that incubated young players for long periods, neither have sounded worried about giving Nylander and other young Leafs a faster promotion than many thought would happen back in September.

While conceding he didn’t have final say with Lamoriello at the NHL GM’s meetings (the latter said he’d do whatever was best for the future), Babcock said “to me, the idea was to bring him up to keep him up. The same goes for the other guys (Hyman, Carrick and Nikita Soshnikov). If they show they can play, that’s fine.

“Willy could have made the team at camp and so could Connor Brown (who broke a foot a month into the AHL season). We chose not to do that for a number of reasons. You don’t have a lot of time to work with Tyler Bozak and Nazem Kadri if you’re talking to Nylander, Hyman and Soshnikov. You come to a new program, it’s important to get the players who are supposed to be leading the way to be playing the way they should.

“(Time on the farm) has been very good for those kids. They’re very effective players and have a lot more speed than the group we had.”

Nylander, his Leafs ball cap firmly atop his blonde locks in the morning, hopes the next time he wears a Marlies sweater will be after the parent team’s NHL season ends April 9 and he goes back to a big role for the AHL playoffs.

“It feels like I’m getting better and better, being able to play more of my game,” Nylander said. “I’ve got a lot of experience playing up here, being with Babs and getting a look at the NHL.”

Jonathan Bernier has looked like Johnny Bower the past two games, a 38-save shutout in Detroit and 26 more against Tampa, three of them good chances by Stamkos, who has just one goal in four games against the Leafs this year.

“We were tight on him all night, outside a bit of the first period,” said Bernier. “I’m not a big talker in the room, but I try to lead by example. They (young guys) are playing with a lot of energy and we can feel that in the room.”

Since Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman’s proclamation that Stamkos wouldn’t be traded, the Bolts’ record is 10-4-1 and it appears the comments had the desired effect of smooth sailing, at least until the end of the regular season.

“It’s easy to say that now because we’re (doing well),” coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s not so much a team thing, it just brought a little calmness to Stammer. As much as I don’t believe what’s gone on around us as a team (was distracting), with Steven it probably affected him at some point. Stammer is getting his 40 goals no matter what. You don’t know when he’s getting it, but he is and (the post-Yzerman comments) just happened to be that time.”

And it seems the Leaf brass can’t turn down William Nylander remaining in The Show beyond Thursday’s 10-game deadline to demote him and save a year on his entry level contract.

Nylander, the Leafs’ top pick in 2014, was part of Tuesday’s 4-1 win against Steven Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning, his ninth NHL start. Two Leafs scored their first goal in Toronto colours, Connor Carrick and Ben Smith, drowning out the ‘We Want Stamkos’ chants that rose up now and then through the second straight Leaf win, which last occurred in early January. The Leafs now have points in four of their last five contests.